The Ravi Lancers (12 page)

‘It might have been, sir,’ Warren said. ‘Do you want me to investigate?’

‘Not officially, or I’d have spoken to Colonel Hanbury. I just wanted to tell you privately that this officer, and others, for that matter, don’t like being made fools of by black men. We are a regiment of British infantry, you know.’

‘Yes, sir. But ... our people are officers, too.’

‘Of course. Of course. But just see that they keep their tricks to themselves, will you? It’ll be better for everybody, in the long run.’ He nodded in sign of dismissal and Warren relit his pipe, which had gone out. He’d have to speak privately with Krishna Ram about this. It was a damned shame to treat the Terrible Twins differently just because they were Indians, yet ... there it was. He himself did not quite know how to handle the problems that came up, and he was living in this new situation. How much harder must it be for a red-faced captain of British infantry, long accustomed to think of all Indians as niggers, and even of the Indian Army regulars as Black Horse or Black Foot? He settled himself into a deck chair, first looking to see that it had not been tampered with, and dozed off.

At ten that night, soon after dinner was over, he set off on an inspection of the troop decks, making each squadron commander accompany him in turn. Though it was a little cooler on the upper decks as soon as the sun went down, in the troop decks it seemed just as hot, or hotter. A swell from the port side was making the ship roll steadily. The hot metal groaned rhythmically, and with the metal, the men jammed in the hammocks, all swinging slowly to and fro in the roll. Warren crawled under the rows of hammocks, every now and then sticking his head up between them, to peer by the light of the naked electric bulbs overhead, into the face of a sowar. ‘Are you all right, lad? Are you comfortable?’

‘I am well, sahib.’

‘Are you comfortable, son?’

‘It is hot, sahib. Otherwise, I am comfortable.’

‘Can you sleep?’

‘I have learned now, sahib. At first, I could not.’

‘Where are this man’s boots, Major Krishna Ram? They’re supposed to be on the deck under his hammock, with his lifejacket, in case of alarm.’

‘Rissaldar-sahib, where are this man’s boots ... ?’

The sweat poured down inside Warren’s shirt and off his forehead. A dismal groan sounded from nearby, followed by retching and the sound of pouring liquid. ‘There’ll be a lot of that tonight,’ he said. ‘See that the men clean it up themselves, at once. You’d better get the squadron sweepers on duty, too.’ To himself he thought, my God, you could cut the smell here with a knife--of digestive gases, garlic and curry farts, and the bodily odours of six hundred men compressed between steel decks barely seven feet apart.

Captain Himat Singh met him at the beginning of B Squadron’s area. He was trying to hold down his queasiness, and looked pale green in the light. Warren asked the same questions, made the same points. At the end he said, ‘These hammocks seem closer together than A’s. Closer than when I inspected the day after we sailed. Have you got some extra men in your section?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What is it then?’

The pale Himat Singh looked ever more unhappy. ‘It’s the
gora paltan
, the Fusiliers, sir ... Their company commander said we were occupying ten feet across the deck that was properly his.’

‘And you moved back?’

Himat Singh seemed to be searching for words before he finally said, ‘Yes, sir.’

They were talking stooped across the body of a sowar who may or may not have been asleep, the steel deck tight over their heads. Warren was furious. The bloody weakling, to let himself be bullied like that!

He controlled himself, and said, ‘You were wrong to do that. It’s not you who suffers, but your men. They hardly have room to breathe.’

‘I know, sir ... but he was a major and he was so definite.’

Warren sighed. ‘Listen ... you are not Himat Singh, an ordinary man like any other man in the street. You are the commander of B Squadron of the Ravi Lancers. Every time you speak you speak for a hundred men, who have no other voice. In whatever concerns them, speak louder, for they speak through you.’

Himat Singh hesitated a long time and then said, ‘Sir ... they have spoken.’

‘What do you mean?’ Warren said irritably.

‘They knew the extra ten feet across the ship really belongs to us, but when my rissaldar ...’

‘That’s Ram Lall, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir ... When he suggested I should complain to you, the men said No, that the
gora log
needed the space more than they did because they were not born to the heat, as we are.’

Warren said, ‘You mean you let your rissaldar and the sowars decide what to do? That’s not the way to command a squadron.
You
decide, and
you
order, and you see that your orders are obeyed...’

Himat Singh licked his lips and seemed about to say something more, but changed his mind, except to say, ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

‘Well, I’ll sort this out tomorrow. We can’t do anything now.’

A gust of air, at first seeming like the breath of a furnace but still welcome as a change from the vomit-laden oven stillness in the troop decks, blew down the ventilator shafts. The ship was circling into the wind, and for the next twenty minutes would steam in the opposite direction, just to blow air through the hold, troop decks, and engine room. The manoeuvre was performed twice each day and twice each night, and without it many men would have died of heatstroke. Two privates of the Fusiliers were already dangerously ill from it.

Warren went on with his inspection of the squadrons. Then to the hold, heavy with the dense smell of manure and horse urine, and the stable sentries vomiting in the corners where the stable refuse was piled to be carried up long steel ladders, and thrown overboard every dawn. Then to the kitchens where the captain of the ship had grudgingly allotted some coal-burning range space for the use of the Ravi Lancers’ cooks. At last he had seen every man and every horse of the regiment, and it was nearly one o’clock. He found the officers’ saloon open, the blackout curtains drawn. Krishna Ram and Himat Singh were there, tall glasses beside them. He flopped into a chair at their table and ordered a chota peg.

Himat Singh jumped up immediately and said, ‘I’m just going to bed. Good night, sir.’ He hurried out, his head bent.

Warren stirred his drink and glanced at Krishna Ram. ‘What are you having?
Nimbu pani?
On a night like this you need something stronger. Not a damned breath of air, and still a hundred.’

‘Sir, I...’

‘I don’t mean it, Krishna. I know you don’t drink.’

‘Mr. Fleming warned me very strongly about the danger of drinking, sir ... My father drank a great deal. He drank himself to death, my mother says. But ... I’d like to drink with you, sir.’

‘Are you sure? Good. Steward, a chota peg for Major Krishna Ram here.’

When the drink was brought and Krishna had sipped it apprehensively, he muttered, ‘It’s not at all sweet, is it?’

‘It’s not meant to be. Sweet drinks are for women ... Why did Himat Singh leave in such a hurry?’

‘He was telling me about the affair of the troop deck space, sir. And what he had done, and not done. He is very ashamed of himself.’ Warren drank slowly. ‘He has no self confidence, that’s his trouble. He seems to be incapable of acting on his own initiative. He has to find out first what everyone else thinks. That’s no way to command troops, especially Indian troops.’

Krishna Ram hesitated just as Himat Singh had, at the end, in the troop decks; but he did at last find the words he wanted. ‘I think it’s our panchayat system. All important questions in our villages are decided by a panchayat, a council of five elders. They are advised by anyone who has special knowledge or interest, and that sometimes means the whole village. We really don’t have a single village headman as you do in British India.’

Warren nodded. ‘We found we had to have one man to deal with, who could be held responsible, and he had to be given authority to carry out the policy.’

‘Of course,’ Krishna Ram said hastily. ‘I am sure that works better ... but the panchayat is what our people are used to, and it’s very hard to make them change their attitudes. These things are in their minds, in their souls, sir, although they cannot easily speak about them--especially in English ... It is a hard job to change such attitudes.’

Warren said, ‘We don’t want to change them ... at least I don’t. I can’t see why it should be necessary to abolish your ways. Some of them just have to be put aside for the duration, because they don’t fit into a modern army or a modern war. Afterwards everyone can go back to the old ways.’

‘If we can, sir,’ Krishna Ram said, ‘and if we want to. We may have learned the European ways and found them better. I certainly hope so.’

‘You really do?’

‘Of course, sir. There is much that I would be sad to see the end of ... even panchayats ... but nothing will really change or improve until our ways of thinking are changed. Better education, for instance. Better health and more real medical care, not the old superstitions. Better care of women and babies. Sanitation, hygiene ..’

‘You’re right, I suppose,’ Warren said, ‘but when the time comes, be careful, Krishna, will you? Go slowly, or you’ll pull up the flowers with the weeds... I see that the CO’s appointed you officers’ censor.’

‘Yes, sir, but of course I shall not read your letters.’

‘I am afraid you must if you are to do your duty.’

‘Yes, sir ... Have you seen Ship’s Orders for today, sir? General Rogers has ordered that caste marks may not be worn in uniform. As we are in uniform all the time on board, the men won’t be able to wear
tilaks
at all.’

Warren said, ‘Well, there’s an example for you, of what we were talking about. The general’s taking another step to change the way you think. A caste mark seems quite normal to the men. To us ... I don’t mean myself, you understand, but to the European ... it’s a badge, announcing “I don’t think the same as you”.’

‘And, “I don’t know how to use a water closet”,’ Krishna Ram said, smiling.

‘I suppose so. Have another drink.’

‘Thank you, sir, I think one’s enough for me. But I do like it.’

‘Well, goodnight. I’m going to get these sweaty rags off and try to sleep.’

The young man stood up at stiff attention, and Warren thought, I must get him to relax more when we’re off duty. We’re supposed to be like a family then, but he hasn’t quite got the hang of it yet. None of them have. Well, they’re Indians, he thought, yawning mightily.

Next morning at six Warren went up to the boat deck, where the whole regiment was gathered, dense packed around the funnel, under the boats on their davits and all over the areas marked off for deck tennis and shuffle-board. The sun was a copper ball low over Arabia and the sea had died to a flat oily calm. The wind still followed the ship at just its speed and the black pall of smoke still hung overhead. On all the deck, on the canvas life-boat covers, and now on all the assembled men, there fell a steady rain of black soot.

Under a makeshift awning stretched between two lifeboats and a corner of the ship’s officers’ cabin structure, the regimental Brahmin sat cross-legged in white
dhoti
, and the long shirt called a
kurta
.

The officers were wearing the peaked service cap which the general had insisted they wear instead of turbans, so that they should not be mistaken for VCOs. The sacred fire burned in a small charcoal stove in front of the Brahmin. Krishna Ram was seated, knees crossed, across the fire from the Brahmin. On Krishna’s right was Major Bholanath and on his left the rissaldar-major. Warren took off his shoes, and joined Colonel Hanbury on small cushions specially placed for them level with the sacred fire, but to one side.

It was the Rajah of Ravi’s personal sacred day. On this day all the people of his state prayed to God to grant him long life and wisdom, and his regiment were doing the same in the burning trough of the Red Sea. The Brahmin was a fat and frightened priest from the Basohli temple, a cousin of the Rawal’s. He had trembled so much as he went up the gangplank at Bombay, his palms joined in prayer and his lips mumbling mantras that Warren had thought he would need help to get on board. Now he had recovered his nerve, or become accustomed to the expanse of the ocean, or perhaps it was the service that he was engaged in, the special privilege of his caste, to communicate between men and gods; now he seemed an emanation of wisdom and calm as he began to chant a litany in Sanskrit.

Warren settled his back against a stanchion, and prepared for a long vigil. The Brahmin chanted for fifteen minutes, now and then rhythmically bowing over the sacred fire. Then a row of sowars on the other side of the fire struck up a hymn, accompanied by men beating hand drums with their palms, and the wail of a lone mountain pipe. The Brahmin started another long mumble. The deck trembled to the deep beat of the engines far below. The soot rained down inexorably from the black cloud. Two white faces appeared at the top of the companion leading up from the main deck below, stared in astonishment, and disappeared.

The Brahmin cast sugar and salt in the fire and it flared up green and yellow. He stood, and walked slowly round the fire chanting the while. He touched the foreheads of Krishna, Bholanath and the rissaldar-major with a white paste and pressed a few grains of rice on to each. Then Krishna spoke a few words, asking the men to pray for his grandfather the Rajah. Bholanath spoke, reminding them that their conduct in battle would reflect directly on their sovereign, who was descended from the Sun. The rissaldar-major stood up and called upon them to bear humility and peace in their hearts even while they wielded the bow of India against the Rajah’s enemies. As he spoke a distant shower moved down the western coast and for a while a rainbow, the sign of the god Indra, arched over towards Egypt above the silent sea.

Then they all stood at the salute while Colonel Hanbury and Warren went down the companion to their breakfast of porridge and kippers.

After tea that day Warren went to the first class saloon to read. By unspoken agreement the officers left the small music room on the starboard side to the half-dozen ladies on board, mostly wives of officers going home on final retirement. That left the saloon as the focal point of the officers’ leisure time. In the evenings there was always one table of men playing whist and another of auction bridge. By the little bar one or two drank, and in the leather-padded armchairs, now usually dark with the previous inhabitant’s sweat, some read. A gramophone was screwed on to a table in one corner, with a stack of records, mostly ragtime or Gilbert and Sullivan, in a rack below.